DIFFERENT: Galantis say their style of making music is different from other dance artists in that they start with a simple melodic foundation on piano or guitar and build things from there.
By Geoffrey Rowlands
Swedish duo Galantis are rather different from most dance music artists. Christian Karlsson and Linus Eklow hope people will actually want to listen to their songs instead of just dancing to them.
“When we’re in the process of creating our songs, we ask ourselves if it is something we would play at home,” Christian revealed. “Linus and I both do a lot of DJ work. There are many songs we play in the clubs that we would never listen to at home.”
“We’re not being critical of those songs,” Linus quickly added. “Their purpose is to fill dancefloors and they do a wonderful job of precisely that.
“It’s just that we wanted our songs to be multi-dimensional. People can still have a great time dancing to them in the clubs but the lyrics and compositional quality are such that they can get equal enjoyment from sitting down and listening to the songs.”
Christian is one third of indie band Miike Snow. With his childhood friend, and Miike Snow bandmate, Pontus Winnberg, Christian is Bloodshy in the Bloodshy and Avant songwriting and production team. They have created songs for artists such as Jennifer Lopez, Kylie Minogue, Madonna, Katy Perry and Britney Spears. The latter’s 2003 track, Toxic, earned Christian and Pontus an Ivor Novello award and a Grammy.
Linus produces and DJs under the moniker Style of Eye. He co-wrote Icona pop’s international smash hit, I Love It, and has collaborated with, or remixed work by, artists such as Usher, Lily Allen and Swedish House Mafia. Linus has also released two albums, numerous EPs and a plethora of singles as Style of Eye.
The boys originally met in 2007 at Christian’s Robotberget studios in Stockholm. Two years later, Linus was asked to remix Miike Snow’s song, Animal. This work drew them together and allowed their friendship to develop but it wasn’t until 2012 that the Galantis sound was born.
“We spent ages just hanging out as friends and playing scraps of songs to each other,” Linus stated. “We had all kinds of ideas that were started and then abandoned until we finally hit upon the kind of songs we wanted to create together.”
“I had so much admiration for Linus as a designer of sounds,” Christian remarked. “But we kept working on conventional dance tracks which left us unsatisfied. We finally began creating our songs in the manner that Linus develops most of his own tracks. We start with a simple melodic foundation on piano or guitar and build things from there.”
“We refer to the process as having naked songs and then dressing them,” Linus smiled. “The layers of keyboards, drums and vocals are the clothes. Our style of work is different from most dance artists who start with a beat and put a top line above this. I think these tracks sound like remixes rather than original songs and I also think our creative method is much more fun.”
Their first two singles, Smile and You, filled dancefloors but made little impression on the mainstream charts. It was third time lucky though as Runaway (U & I) became not just their first mainstream success but an international smash hit.
“I can’t say we anticipated this,” Christian admitted. “We’ve had an amazing response to our music during DJ sets but we didn’t expect this to translate into the mainstream charts.”
Runaway (U & I) is the lead single from the duo’s debut album, “Pharmacy.”
“The title references what we think is the healing effect of our music,” Linus explained. “We always try to create feel-good music but we also spend a lot of time on the lyrics.
“Many dance tracks have words which don’t really say anything. It’s difficult to make a meaningful lyric match a feel-good, but not just happy or cheesy, tune. We try our best though and hope listeners will respond as positively to the other songs on our album as they have to Runaway (U & I).”
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Nate Ruess
Nate Ruess likes to be different. The singer, songwriter, musician and frontman of fun decided against using a capital letter F in the name of his band. But Nate has been rather more conventional in employing the relevant upper case letters in his own name and the title of his newly released debut solo album, “Grand Romantic.”
The LP was inspired by “new love.” It was produced by long-time collaborators Jeff Bhasker and Emile Haynie while guest artists include Beck, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer and Swedish indie pop artist Lykke Li.
The video for lead single, Nothing Without Love, can be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssVvkfcL9HI
The second single doesn’t seem to have been decided upon. Fans who pre-ordered “Grand Romantic” received instant downloads of Nothing Without Love plus three more album tracks, AhHa, Great Big Storm and What The World Is Coming To.
A lyric video has been made for the latter. This is posted at www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXElWgsMpvc
Official audios for AhHa and Great Big Storm are available to hear online. The former is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkjCl2HPScU while the latter is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMaGmJFCSp0
Iggy Azalea
Despite her phenomenal chart success, Australian rapper/singer Iggy Azalea has been making news for the wrong reasons in recent times. Her latest round of adverse publicity stemmed from the cancellation of her “Great Escape Tour” for no apparent reason other than just not wanting to perform the scheduled concerts.
But Iggy, real name Amethyst Amelia Kelly, now has some good news to share with her fans. After being together since November, 2013, she has become engaged to Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Nick Young.
Armed with a US$500,000 diamond ring, Nick proposed on bended knee during his 30th birthday party. The presence of video cameras ensured it is a moment the couple can relive for the rest of their lives. So too can Nick and Iggy’s fans as the proposal is posted at www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKpYQSKA3-8
Eminem
Sports drama Southpaw is Jake Gyllenhaal’s much anticipated forthcoming film. He plays Billy Hope, a one-time champion boxer who returns to the ring after personal tragedy causes his world to fall apart.
Rap superstar Eminem executive produced the movie soundtrack and has now issued his own song, Phenomenal, as the lead single. Additional vocals are contributed by Liz Rodriguez and Mario Resto.
No official video has been released as yet but an audio posting of the song can be heard at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex55lbcS4wc
Metric
Canadian quartet Metric issue their sixth studio album, “Pagans in Vegas,” on September 18. Available to hear now though are two singles from the new LP, The Shade and Cascades.
Singer and multi-instrumentalist Emily Haines describes Cascades as “the song we consider to be the pounding heart of our new album.”
Fans probably anticipated a hard rocking number. They actually discovered a piece of electronic dance music with Emily’s robotic-like vocals virtually hidden amongst all the synthpop sounds. Reaction has been somewhat mixed but mostly positive. See what you think by checking out the video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuPRFDC3wCQ
Lead single, The Shade, is a little more along the line of what fans could expect to hear from Metric. The video is posted at www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaUlH3QQEAQ
The band’s last album, 2012’s “Synthetica,” is available to hear in full at www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk1tSnMxnRU
